Help sought in FAA fight

Published 8:00 pm, Sunday, March 9, 2008

By JARED NEWMAN

jnewman@wiltonvillager.com

STAMFORD -- Chief elected officials from Southern Connecticut have asked lawmakers for financial aid in their legal battle with the Federal Aviation Administration, indicating that the $1 million they've allocated so far won't be enough.

"This is requiring a considerable expenditure, for which no municipality had budgeted," Redding First Selectman Natalie Ketcham said in written testimony. "To continue the state's battle, municipalities need financial assistance."

The requests, which did not include specific dollar amounts, came during a public hearing by the legislature's transportation committee Monday. State Sens. Bob Duff, D-25, and Andrew McDonald, D-27, organized the hearing for a proposed non-binding resolution denouncing the FAA plan.

Members of the Alliance for Sensible Airspace Planning, a coalition of 12 towns and cities including Norwalk that are suing the FAA, spoke and sent written testimony to the committee. Ketcham, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy and First Selectman Rudy Marconi of Ridgefield said lawmakers should not only pass the resolution but send funding as well.

"We have money to continue," Marconi, who is also chairman of the alliance, said in an interview, "but as we look at how this case plays out over time, we are not going to really be able to go back to the municipalities for any more money."

Instead, Marconi said either the legislature will have to provide funding or the alliance will need more towns and cities to join and pitch in.

The FAA announced in September its plan to reroute air traffic patterns over the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, claiming that the redesign would reduce congestion and ease airport delays.

The alliance argues that the FAA didn't adequately consider all options when drawing the plan and sought little input from the communities that would be affected. Further, critics charge that the plan would do little to cut down on delays as promised.

In November, the alliance and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed separate lawsuits. The alliance also enlisted a lobbyist firm and an advocacy group to sway opinions in Washington, but the cost so far has been high -- over $1 million in taxpayer money for the first nine months of representation from the firms. The municipalities split half the costs evenly and divide the rest by population.

Judy Neville, a former first selectman of New Canaan and the alliance's chief operating officer, said she encouraged officials who testified to ask lawmakers for funding.

"We agreed that this was a good opportunity to ask for a call of action on part of the state to help us fund our ongoing litigation," she said.

Neville would not comment on the alliance's long term financial needs or on how much money she would expect from the state.

McDonald said in an interview that he would certainly support sending state money to the alliance.

"It seems to me that the most effective and strategic approach to overturning this decision would be a multi-pronged attack on it," he said.

Duff said he would need more information first, such as what the budget will be and how much money the alliance requests. He also said Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who has spoken out against the FAA's plan, should get behind any proposal to help fund the municipalities' fight.

Either way, he said, the idea that the state should be spending money to fight the federal government in the first place is "just preposterous."